011 783 131 0'"- 



pH8^ 



E 286 
.019 
1851 
Copy 1 



'>^-/-5 



AN 



ADDKESS 



DELIVERED AT A BARBACUE, 



THE CITIZENS OF BOYLE COUNTY, KY 



At Danville, July 4th, 1851. 



WILLIAM M. J^COTT, 



PROFESSOR OF GREEK, BELLES LETTRES AND CIVIL ARCHITECTURE IX 
CENTRE COLLEGE. 



PRINTED AT NO. 30 NORTH FOURTH STREET, 
PHH>.\DELI'HIA. 



srs>i 






Danville, July 4, 1851. 
Prof. W. M. Scott: 

Dear Sir, — Your aide and eloquent address in commemora- 
tion of this national jubilee, was listened to to-day with delight by many 
of your fellow-citizens, but owing to the large audience present, there 
were a great number of persons who Avcre unable to hear at the distance 
they were removed from the stand. At the instance of many of your 
fellow-citizens, and in accordance with our own feelings, we earnestly 
solicit a copy of your address for publication. In common with other of 
your fellew-citizens, we believe the publication and dissemination of the 
principles inculcated in your address, will accomplish much good. We 
therefore trust you will comply with our request, and advise us at your 
earliest convenience. 

With sentiments of high regard. 

We are, dear Sir, your Friends, 

And fellow-citizens, 
R. A. Watts, 
A. S. M'Grorty, 
Theo. R. Dunlap, 
Wm. C. Akin, 

Committee. 



Danville, July 5, 1851. 
Gentlemen of the Committee: 

I have received your note of yesterday in reference to the 
publication of the address delivered on that occasion. In reply, I must 
say that I am persuaded either that you did not hear it, or that personal 
kindness towards the author has transferred itself to it. In return for 
that kindness, I feel constrained to place the copy at your disposal. 
While I regard it as due to myself to say, that the time allowed for its 
preparation was so short, and that little time so crowded with more 
pressing duties, that it will require to be read with all the indulgence 

,.with whiah.itwas Jieardi. J . c<< 

'.*! ^1?eJ)t:n};f:sincO'e thiJiJksVcgehtlemon, for the kind terms in which you 
have preierred your request, 

,.^ ... ... ,., . .. .». .'.And "believe me, very sincerely, yours, 

:''. *'*':v.*^* •*...*...• '•'•.-' w. M. SCOTT. 

'"NTeVsrsr R*. A. Watts and otfiers. 



■■S3 



ADDRESS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — 

I shall make no apologj- for addressing you to-day. 
Your committee, not very wisely, requested me to do 
so, and I very foolishly consented. If a great mistake 
has been made, blame your committee for being so 
stupid as to invite me, and blame yourselves for ap- 
pointing such a committee. You would have ^^referred, 
as I would, to hear another. 

If any of you have come here expecting to hear 
from me the trumpeting of our own praises as a people, 
you will be disappointed. The truth is, I think we are 
no better than we should be. We should be better off, 
but for our own folly : and more prosperous, if it were 
not for our own vices. Under God we owe to others 
the good we enjoy, and our freedom from evil. We 
got it by inheritance from that great and peculiar race 
to which we belong. We are but a branch of that 
great Anglo-Saxon tree, whose roots have struck 
deeper, and its branches spread wider, while the tem- 
pests of fourteen centuries have howled through them 
with all their changes and vicissitudes. 

I believe in the " Fourth of July.''' It is a day to 
make us humbler, to make us better. It is a day to 
teach us to look to the past with reverence and grati- 
tude, and to the future with hopefulness and faith. It 
is a day to penetrate us with profoundest gratitude and 
thankfulness to our God, to our fathers' God, who hath 
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell upon 
all the face of the earth, and hath determined the 



times Ijcfore appointed and the bounds of their habita- 
tion; who hath given us rain from heaven and fruitful 
seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. I 
believe in this great national sabbath, which teaches us 
to love each other more, and hold our country dearer ; 
which brings us together to look in each others' faces, 
to grasp each others' hands, to forget past differences, 
lay aside party prejudices and animosities, and to start 
afresh upon a new year with more love for each other, 
more zeal for each others' good, and more pure-hearted 
affection for the land of our dwelling-place and our 
love ; to set out with strength of heart and purpose to 
be better neighbors, Ijetter Kentuckians, better Ame- 
ricans, better Christians than ever before. 

I said, awhile ago, that we belonged to a peculiar 
race, and that we inherit from it the chief elements of 
our happiness and success. 

About nineteen hundred years ago, the Eoman Em- 
pire had a line of fortresses stretching from the mouth 
of the Danube westward to the head of the Rhine, and 
down that to the ocean. Beyond this cordon of mili- 
tary posts, they knew very little of the country and the 
people, except that they were dangerous enemies. 
When they looked over the walls, they saw them 
moving westward with wagons ; the men, hardy and 
rugged, driving the team ; the women and curly-haired 
children crowning the top of the load. When they 
met an enemy, they drew their long spears and thick 
swords from the wagon and settled with him and went 
on. Age after age this stream poured on, till the 
forests of Germany swarmed with them. When they 
reached the western sea, they took the hides off their 
cattle and braced them with sticks, in which craft they 
rode the waves as the sea-gulls. Whatever they 



3 

found that they wanted, they took bccauf^e they could. 
Among these there was a tribe distinguished above tlie 
rest in stature, in pride and power, though not in 
numbers, whom Ptolemy made known to the Romans 
in the second century under the name of Saxones. 
From the first they appear, few as they w^ere, to have 
looked upon this world as theirs by divine right. 
Among the fierce and terrible Germanic tril3es, they 
were the fiercest and the terriblest. Id stature they 
towered a])ove them; in majesty and manly beauty 
they surpassed them, so that they regarded themselves 
as the aristocracy, the veritable king-nation of all the 
Gothic tribes. When the Romans withdrew their 
forces from Britain, they were attracted to its shores, 
and finally nearlj' the whole race was transplanted to 
that island. There the hardy stock took abiding root, 
and though engraftings have since been made, the 
mighty trunk still stands, and the original vital sap 
still runs through all its branches and fibres. In pro- 
cess of time they reached this continent, and set up 
their wagons, and shouldered their arms, and started 
westward again. And this day, if you were to start 
here and travel north to the shores of Hudson's Bay, 
upon every road wide enough you would see the wagon 
with its driver and its load of women and children, 
heading still to the westward. And could you pass 
westward, on all your way round the world, over the 
boundless plains of the upper Missouri and Mississsipi, 
down the banks of the roaring Columbia, through the 
forests and rocks of Australia and New Zealand, you 
would see the land dotted with slowly-moving spots, 
which, upon near inspection, you find to be the moving 
households of the Anglo-Saxon. Meet him — there is 
a look about him which intimates that you were best 



not interrupt him. The Indians tried that, where 
are they? The French tried it, and once had all of 
the Canadas, the whole of this interior valle}', and the 
lower Mississippi. They don't hold it now. The 
Mexicans recently partially tried it, and the experiment 
was painful, but it may be hoped salutary. 

This race, so mighty, so growing, and so restless, is 
not an army of locusts or of Saracens, before whom the 
earth is a garden, and behind them black desolation. 
They are the pioneers of civilization. They carry 
law, liberty, religion in their highest known forms 
wherever they go. To this race we belong. Its his- 
tory is our history. Its work devolves in our measure 
upon us. Its responsibilities we must so far forth meet. 

I propose to name a few items, for which we are in- 
debted to our connection with this race, and which are 
among their contributions to .the cause of Christian 
civilization ; and you will perceive, on the bare men- 
tion of them, that they constitute the very soul and 
life-blood of our prosperity and happiness as a nation. 
These views may, perhaps, tend to humble us in re- 
gard to our own personal deserving, while they should 
stimulate us to hopefulness in doing what is before us, 
for we Kentuckians, are not the least of all people, in 
need of occasional lessons in humility. 

I shall name first, in this connection among the items 
of that priceless heritage into which we have entered, 
a representative government. 

This was a thing unknown to the nations of anti- 
quity. Hence their transitions from freedom to anar- 
chy, and from anarchy to despotism were so sudden 
and so violent, because nothing of the informing, con- 
servative power of this principle of representation was 
found in them. It is a check both upon despotism and 



democracy, wherever it exists; and so mediates be- 
tween them, as to prevent them in turn from destroy- 
ing each other. This principle existed to some extent, 
in the rude and simple forms of polity, among all the 
Gothic nations ; and from the peculiar necessities of the 
feudal system, overspread Europe during the middle 
ages. But it was only in England that it ripened into 
a representative legislature ; and it is there, and among 
the offspring of the Anglo-Saxon race, that it has had 
its legitimate influence in moulding the character and 
manners of the people ; and only they have the prac- 
tical skill to make available use of it. This skill is not 
the learning of a day nor of an age, but like the appli- 
cation of all great principles, it has been the learning 
of ages and centuries. It has struggled painfully and . 
slowly up from the iviten a gemote of our Saxon fore- 
fathers to the Parliament of England and the Congress 
of the United States. And it is destined to reach its 
perfection only with the perfection of the people who 
practice it. The bungling attempts and sorrowful fail- 
ures of others who have attempted to adopt and prac- 
tice it, show that it is not to be learned at three easy 
lessons by all. The}^ must be content to take it at 
first, with the evils their w^ant of skill must connect 
with it, and learn Ijy long training, and oftentimes, sore 
discipline, its skilful use and priceless value. This, 
mankind will learn, and are learning, and when by 
slow and painful travail, it has worked its way among 
all people with its elevating, educating influences, they 
will turn with gratitude to that race that fought and 
toiled and waited and endured for this principle, and 
then gave it to the nations and taught them its use. 
The influence of this principle in carrying down through 
all departments of society a knowledge of right, and an 



6 . . 

intelligent reverence for law, cannot be estimated. 
What would England have been without a Parliament ? 
And the United States without national or state legis- 
latures ? 

To this may be added tlte jury, especially as a politi- 
cal institution. The germ of this institution may be 
traced in the early and simple forms of judicial pro- 
ceedings among most of the Germanic tribes, but it is 
only amongst the Anglo-Saxons that it has grown to be 
in fact tliejiiry. When barbarians, they carried it to 
England and planted it. As they progressed in civili- 
zation and healthful refinement, they cherished and 
perfected it. Wherever they have gone, they have 
carried it with them, and established it as their most 
valued institution. They have sustained it when in- 
vaded, and fought for it when attacked, and from every 
struggle in its behalf, they have come forth with a more 
deep and ardent love for it, and its more sure and abid- 
ing establishment. 

It is not simply because of the strong guard it throws 
around life, which its employment in criminal cases 
secures, nor of its agency in securing equal justice to 
the parties litigant in civil causes, that it is here men- 
tioned as a legacy to us. It is because it is a political 
institution of great power, especially when extended 
to civil causes, because of its educating influences 
upon all classes of people, because it carries down from 
the highest judicial officer to the huml3lest that may sit 
as a juror, something of the spirit of the judge, by in- 
vesting all with a temporary magistracy to be exercised 
according to law and under the sanction of an oath, 
imbuing them with a sense of right and a respect for 
justice, making them practically acquainted with the 
laws under which they live, and presenting a thousand 



motives for judging others as they would Ije judged 
themselves, that it is regarded as a gift of so high value. 
No people having this institution, and understanding 
its use, and appreciating its value, can long be oppress- 
ed or live in anarchy, and no people without it, can 
have any abiding safeguard against either. When the 
two kindred institutions of representive legislation and 
trial l^y jury, shall have won their way to the know- 
ledge and practice of all people, rational and beneficial 
li])erty, now enjoyed in its highest known forms only 
among the Anglo-Saxon race, will be as widely diffused 
as the habitations of man. 

Another item deserves to be mentioned in this cata- 
logue, because we are accustomed to regard it as the 
distinguishing glory of this age, I mean that philoso- 
phy of nature, the methods of which Bacon deserves 
the credit of pointing out. These methods have been 
carried into all the departments of science and art, un- 
til now, men have nature at work for them. The fire 
carries him on his journey, and the lightning runs his 
errands. All the improvements in the arts of life and 
comfort, of which we hear so much boasting in these 
days, are the direct offspring of this philosophy. But 
that which I regard as among its greatest benefits, is 
that it has for ever fortified civilization against bar- 
barism by putting the physical power into its hands. 
It has chained barbarian ferocity at the feet of the 
civilized world, and is perpetually adding to the mas- 
sive coils that hold it in check. In our own day we 
have seen a marked proof of this, in seeing a mere 
fragment of the maritime force of a small island, ope- 
rating on the other side of the globe, humble and 
bring to terms an empire embracing one-third of the 
human race. Change, in imagination, the seat of war, 



and say how many Chinese empires would have to 
be precipitated upon Enghand with a like result. It 
is this which has changed the position of Christendom 
with respect to Mohammedan power ; so that by the 
sufferance and guarantee of two nations in Christian 
Europe, they retain nominal possession of the land of 
the Holy Sepulchre, which all Europe combined could 
not save nor recover from their grasp six hundred 
years ago. Thus this philosophy has reared around 
Christian society a rampart more impregnable than 
the brazen walls of Athens, or the munitions of rocks 
behind which it may work out its beneficent purposes, 
free forever from the assaults of barbaric valor and 
their attendant desolations. 

We are no longer to look exclusively to the strong 
arms and stout hearts of hardy yeomen for the defence 
of our country in danger, but the natural philosopher 
in his study, the chemist in his laboratory, and the 
mathematician at his desk, are the most efficient de- 
fenders of the soil. They show us how to construct 
railroads, by which in twenty-four hours a million of 
fresh troops, with their equipments, may be concen- 
trated wherever an enemy may land; they construct 
telegraphs, by which the appearance of an enemy's 
vessel may be told over the whole continent before 
she can touch the shore ; and they put into the hands 
of the soldier such engines of war as annihilate 
armies in an hour. Our generals are no longer your 
fierce whiskered heroes of the olden time, drinking 
brandy sweetened with gunpowder, and flavored with 
aquasfortis, stirred in with a lightning-rod. They 
must be men of the highest science. They must be 
the ablest mathematicians, the best natural philoso- 
phers, the most skilful chemists, and ablest engineers. 



9 . 

War has thus "become a contest of mmd, a conflict of 
intelligence, and the wisest nation is the strongest na- 
tion. I wish you to bear this particularly in mind 
when I come to another point upon which I expect to 
have time to say a word. 

I would like to add to this catalogue, and dwell at 
some length on it, another item of our rich inheritance, 
of which we are not the authors ; but I have little more 
than time to name it. I allude to our Christian litera- 
ture, which goes wherever the English tongue goes, 
and moulds and educates the minds of all who speak 
that noble tongue. But the subject is too vast to be 
touched with any particularity, even had it the whole 
time to itself. Just ask yourselves, what should we 
be without it ? What should we be as individuals, or 
as a nation, if there had been no Shakspeare, no 
Milton, no Bunyan, no nobody ? 

But I pass from this to the last gift I shall now mention 
as coming to us from this race, the Reformation. This 
is properly the work of the Anglo-Saxon race. A Saxon 
Monk began it. When Romanism would have leaped 
upon it and trampled it out and scattered it, a Saxon 
Prince and Saxon chieftains defended it, till it blazed 
up heaven-high, and the nations began to gather to its 
brightness. The whole Anglo Saxon mind seemed 
waiting for it, so that it spread and took fast hold 
wherever the race extended It was, in fact, the legiti- 
mate outworking of that mind, free, bold, and enter- 
prising in all its spirit. In England, in Scotland it 
was prevalent; and when Philip, of Spain, after having 
annihilated it from the Peninsula, was preparing to ex- 
terminate it from the north of Europe, Anglo-Saxon 
arms saved it by the defeat of the invincible Armada, 
and secured its establishment both in Britain and in 

2 



10 

the Northern Kingdoms on the Continent. And now 
it finds its supporters and its liome amongst the Anglo- 
Saxon race, insomuch that if the race were to perish 
to-morrow, Protestantism would perish with it. 

Think for a moment what we should he — if we could 
be at all — without any of these, without a representa- 
tive legislature, without jury trial, without our science 
of nature, without our English literature, without the 
Reformation, without the results and fruits of these. 

What should we be this day without these trees 
of life, with their manifold and ever ripening fruits, 
which have been watched from age to age by our 
fathers, guarded by their strong arms, and watered 
with their richest blood ? We think it an easy thing 
to be free, to be personally free, and politically secure, 
but mankind have not found it so. The whole history 
of the past scarcely contains an instance of true free- 
dom to the citizen and national independence ; and 
upon all the face of the earth there is not another 
found besides our own. Mankind have struggled to 
be free, have fought for freedom, have deserved free- 
dom, but to-day are not free. They have found it 
easier to win it than to keep it. It has enemies with- 
out, ever watchful and malignant. It has generally 
had enemies within, foolish and treacherous. Between 
the two, freedom is the rare, "indeed, it would seem, 
the impossible condition of humanity. It has come 
to us without a struggle ; so that we are in danger of 
forgetting that it cost others eftbrt and toil and life ; 
and still more in danger of forgetting that the abiding 
condition of our remaining free, is that we continue 
stronger than all our enemies combined. Our inde- 
pendence could not survive a year, if the tyrants of 
the earth were able to subvert it. 



11 

This day seventy-five years ago, it was declared that 
the people of these States were, and of right ought to 
be, free and independent. That declaration was made 
good, not more hy the valor and endurance of our 
fathers, than by the fact that Englishmen had small 
heart to fight against freedom and brethren too. Fif- 
teen years afterwards they again assembled to form a 
more perfect union, and devise such a system as would 
not only form l)ut preserve that more perfect union. 
Sixty years has that Constitution and the Union it 
formed and cemented stood, producing results such as 
were nev.er seen before nor elsewhere upon the earth. 
Liberty, prosperity, securit}^, boundless growth, glorious 
prospects are the fruits. But even this Constitution, 
this Union, are but the fruits of those precious gifts 
that have come down to us from our great Anglo-Saxon 
ancestry. Where would the Constitution 1)e without 
representative legislation ? Where were our personal 
liberty without trial by jury? Where our advancing 
refinement without our English literature ? Where 
our improvements in the arts of usefulness and com- 
fort without the Baconian philosoph}; ? Where our 
religious freedom without the Reformation ? 

In all the history of humanity, God has never given 
such a position, such advantages, and such hopes to any 
people, and offered such a destiny to any nation. To 
prove false to that destiny, to squander those advan- 
tages, to disregard those hopes, would deserve, as it 
would surely get, the contempt of our postejity, the 
curses of mankind, and the deep scorn of countless 
generations. We must neither do it nor allow it to be 
done. The fact that there are within the limits of this 
Union those who hate it, is no more evidence that it 
is not the best condition in which humanity has yet 



12 

leeii found, than the llict that the Devil and his angels 
were not content in heaven proves that it is not a bet- 
ter place than hell, though it niav prove that hell is a 
fitter place for them. The first prime duty of the na- 
tion, is to avert national ruin, whatever it may cost. 
Those who w^ould distract, divide, weaken, destroy it, 
are traitors, traitors to their country, traitors to liberty, 
traitors to the great race to whicli we belong, traitors 
to humanity and to God, These trees of life which 
our great ancestors have nurtured for us, have been 
watered from the beginning with the blood of patriots. 
The blood of traitors at times afibrds them no less 
wholesome nourishment. '" Our glorious institutions 
have been steeped, from the beginning, in the blood of 
patriots. Dreadful as the alternative would be, better 
also steep them in the blood of traitors than let them 
perish in utter ignominy." 

It has got to be a favorite employment, with one 
class of our politicians, to dissolve the Union, and of 
another, to save it. Now all this may be well enough 
for pla}^, and for political wire-pulling, though it resem- 
bles too much, children plajing at cursing and swearing. 
I would have them understand that neither is exactly 
the w^ork of politicians, and let them alone. When- 
ever the existence of this Union and this Constitution 
becomes incompatible with true liberty, and retards the 
advance of the cause of humanity, they ought to be, 
and they will be, destroyed. As long as they are the 
best means of preserving and promoting both, they will 
be preserved. When they are to be destroyed, the peo- 
ple will know it, and have some hand in it; until then, 
wdien they are in danger they will come to the rescue. 
I declare it to be my firm conviction, that the true 
heart of this great people, requires the perpetuity of 



13 

this Union and this Constitution; thut wlien idle chat- 
terers are dumb, the}^ will call upon the wise and the 
good to take up the liigh argument, and settle these 
high and solemn questions. And when they, who 
alone are worthy, shall have declared under, their sol- 
emn responsibility to posterity and to God, as I believe 
they ought and will declare, that this Union is to be 
preserved, and if need be, its enemies destroyed, that 
then they will come forth from their homes in the moun- 
tains and the plains, and say, with the voice of a 
united and free people, as the voice of many waters, 
'' Thus it shall her 

I am sorry to see so many in these latter days learn- 
ing the alphabet of treason, set them by South Carolina 
seventy-seven years ago; in advocating or resisting any 
measure of the Federal government, saying, thus will 
we have it, or dissolve the Union ; Congress shall pass 
this measure or we go out; Congress must not repeal 
that or we dissolve. I have said this is the alphabet 
of treason, and so it is. The first example was set by 
South Carolina in 1 7 74 . When the Colonies had met in 
Congress, and had agreed upon a non-intercourse mea- 
sure, in hopes to bring England to terms through the 
influence of her merchants, without a resort to arms, 
the delegates of South Carolina withdrew, declaring 
that unless she were allowed to export rice and indigo, 
she would not join with the sister Colonies. As a com- 
promise she was allowed to export the rice, which was 
the chief item of her export, but not indigo, of which 
she made very little. This was a bad beginning. 
This has been her game ever since. Nothing she 
wanted, but what she claimed at the risk of dissolving 
the Union. Until now her politicians have gone so 
far, that if the Congress were to agree in all time to 



14 

come, to give lier whatever she asks, she could not stay, 
for her demands are now beyond the power of human 
legislation to meet. It is nothing less than to make 
South Carolina the greatest, the richest, the wisest, the 
happiest State in the Union, to make all the South do as 
she bids, and all the North go to the mischief This 
is her advance from such a beginning in seventy-seven 
years, and that too, under the fi'eest government ever 
seen on earth ; from which she never suffered a real 
•wrong, and has no good reason to apprehend any. 
Therefore we should mark well those aspirants for public 
favor, who think to win that favor hy teaching us to lisp 
the language of South Carolina traitors, and degrade and 
deprave the government of our choice, and our fore- 
fathers' handiwork, by trying to overawe it, and 
wring from it by threats, what if just, we are more 
likely to get by fairly presenting our cause, setting 
forth its justice and its humanity, and appealing to the 
great heart of a magnanimous people. Disunion can 
be iio remedy for wrongs, nor protection for rights. 
The motto of wise men and true men must be, " Don't 
give up the ship. Sink gloriously with it, rather than 
ingloriously in the wdiirlpool its descent creates, after 
we have foolishly or falsely abandoned it. Sink or 
swim, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the coun- 
try, the whole country, my country, the Constitution, 
the Union." We must teach these gentry another use 
for their figures besides " calculating the value of the 
Union." Rather let them count the cost of its preser- 
vation, at so much per head for traitors' scalps. Rather 
let them be asked to tell how many wagging tongues cut 
out would serve to stop such mouths as never open l)ut 
for treason. Let them be told, state your grievances, 
propound your wants, and if reasonaJjle nnd right, you 



15 

shall have justice done yoii; but don't insult the govern- 
ment of our free choice, by declaring it unfit for the 
government of freemen ; don't call it both a fool and a 
coward, and especially don't put your demands in such 
a shape as that it must be both fool and coward to 
grant them.* 

This priceless heritage is not ours nor theirs, but is 
given us in trust for the orphan world and for coming 
generations, and we must not gamble upon orphans' 
trust funds, nor rattle the dice upon our fathers' grave- 
stones, nor allow it to be done. 

* It may seem strange to some, that while the enemies of the Union in 
one section of the country were alluded to in such decided terms, there 
was nothing said in condemnation of the spirit and proceedings of another 
class, in another section. It might be sufficient answer to such, to say 
that, in an address so necessarily brief, there was not time to say every- 
thing. But other reasons existed, which might be given, and perhaps it 
may not be amiss to mention a few of them here. 

1. There is little need in Kentucky, or in the South, to denounce aboli- 
tionism ; it has got very much to be like kicking a man "because he has 
no friends." It requires little courage to do it. 

2. The views and courses animadverted upon in the address, are more 
likely to find sympathy in this section, and, therefore, it is proper that 
they should be attended to when only one can ; and the warning most 
needed in such cases is hardest to be given with fidelity. 

3. It is not true that the free soil party of the North stand upon the dis- 
union platform, declaring they will break up the Union unless their views 
are carried out by the general government. It is true there is a fragment 
of abolitionists who denounce all government as sinful, but they are sim- 
ply isolated individuals, not only hated but mobbed at the North. 

All Avho take the same gi-ound with Southern disunionists, are to be 
held as coming under the same condemnation, from whate-ver quarter 
they come. 

It may be proper to remark further, that there was no intention of ex- 
pressing an opinion as to the specific course to be adopted by the gene- 
ral government, in case of the secession of any state. That is a great 
question of expediency, to be decided by the high wisdom of the country, 
when it has to be decided practically, if ever. So long as the overwhelm- 
ing mass of the people of this country are in favor of the perpetuity of our 
existing institutions, they have the right to maintain them, and they are 
bound to do it. It should be with the largest possible forbearance, but 
still done. 



16 

We start this year upon the second half of the 
nineteenth century. It rests without ourselves to say 
whether we shall go on to fill up the measure of our 
country's glory, or of its ruin and shame. What say 
you, citizens of Kentucky ? What sort of a country 
shall the sun of nineteen hundred rise and shine upon ? 
One rent into fragments, here a crippled State, there a 
feeble confederacy, yonder a foreign dependency, and 
all stained with brothers' blood, shed by brothers' 
hands ? or shall this day on that year be hailed from 
the granite hills of Maine to the gold mountains of 
California, from the lakes of the North to the hills of 
Mexico, by the people of one heart, and one tongue, 
and one government, the greatest, the purest, the no- 
blest that ever the earth saw? 



This address was followed by one from the Hon. .JOSHUA F. BELL, 
marked by his signal ability and winning eloquence. The Committee regret 
that press of business with other reasons prevented him from writing it 
out for publication, as he was requested urgently to do. It was listened 
to with great pleasure by as large an audience as could gather within the 
sound of his voice. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





011 783 131 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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